North Yorkshire – Haggbridge.com

William Thompson & The Mounted Home Guard

Our Great Grandfather, William THOMPSON (1891-1964), led the charge! “England’s only mounted section of the Home Guard, which nightly patrols 100 square miles of the North Riding,” read the caption in the Yorkshire Evening Press. Well, that might have been a slight exaggeration, as there were at least three other mounted units in Devon, Glamorgan, & Warwickshire. It was the...

H Robert Thompson & Vickers Wellington

Sergeant H Robert Thompson, Royal Canadian Air Force, was serving with 14 OTU at RAF Market Harborough, training as a navigator on Vickers Wellington medium bombers, having left his new wife, May, in Vancouver, British Columbia. Prior to enlistment, Robert worked on his father’s farm and completed two years studying medicine at Victoria College. He intended to continue studies after...

Robert Thompson & SS Empire Spring

Leading Signalman Robert Thompson, aged 24, served as one of six Royal Navy staff aboard the CAM Ship, SS Empire Spring. Robert had completed naval training in London, met his wife on weekend leave in Southend on Sea, married in her hometown of Sunderland, and started a family. They were going to settle down in his hometown of York. The...

Ken Bainbridge & The Half Way Sign

“200 hundred miles from London, 200 hundred miles from Edinburgh” announced my grandfather as we drove past the sign in his new Ford Orion, on route to our next Swinsty Reservoir fly fishing adventure. It must have been 1987 or thereabout when Reg BAINBRIDGE showed me his brother’s handiwork on the Great North Eastern Railway line. However my memory is...

John Henry Bainbridge & The Grocers

John Henry, our Great Grandfather, was the youngest of five siblings, born 2 March 1892 in Tollerton, to Elizabeth Ann HEADLEY and Charles BAINBRIDGE, a platelayer for North Eastern Railways. John Henry was named after his great grandfather John BAINBRIDGE and grandfather Henry BAINBRIDGE. Unlike his elder siblings in domestic service, John Henry, took an apprenticeship with a clothing and...

Elizabeth Ann Headley & Domestic Service

Our 3rd Great Grandmother, Elizabeth Ann HEADLEY, was born 1863 in Huby, Yorkshire, to parents Isabella MENNELL & John HEADLEY, an agricultural laborer. Elizabeth was the sixth of eight siblings, seven of whom survived to adulthood. All four brothers relocated to Shildon, County Durham, to work in the coal mines or railways and her two sisters moved out of the village...